


Il reietto

by Lasgalendil



Category: Trust (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Canon, Small Towns, background Leonardo/Regina - Freeform, teenage Primo Nizzuto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27624767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: Primo is a fixture of life in their small village. He’s not the Village Idiot—far from it, in fact—nor the Town Drunk, but he is The Outcast, The Example, the one the elders clucked over and parents pointed to, whispered warnings about.
Relationships: Leonardo & Primo Nizzuto
Kudos: 31





	Il reietto

Primo is a fixture of life in their small village. He’s not the Village Idiot—far from it, in fact—nor the Town Drunk, but he is The Outcast, The Example, the one the elders clucked over and parents pointed to, whispered warnings about. His hair is too long, his pants too tight, plays truant more often than not, both from mass and the schoolyard. Leo can’t say he blames him—what adolescent wouldn’t sleep through Sunday mornings, skip school with no mother, no father to enforce it?

It’s hard not to consider his behavior childish. Ungrateful. Leo has half a mind to pull him aside and lecture him, tempered only by the certainty if he did Primo would stop school altogether out of spite. There’s nothing quite like an adult explaining something that makes one even less inclined to listen.

He isn’t envious, doesn’t begrudge Primo the opportunity. Just doesn’t want to watch him make the same mistakes: Leo never finished his schooling. He’d done well, yes—excelled in mathematics—but their village couldn’t support a full time teacher. He’d learned to read and write well enough to balance a ledger, to stumble his way through a book (even now, it was work. Leo read to learn, to drink in knowledge, not for leisure), even teach himself English well enough to understand American movies.

Then there was a war on. He’d missed the worst of it, true, stuck in that awkward stage of adolescence old enough to work to support his mother, too young to be conscripted and killed. Most of the boys he’d grown up with were gone—taken as soldiers by the _liste d'estrazioni_ or after, fleeing the countryside to find work in the cities and factories. Few returned. Regina liked to joke it was the reason she’d married him: all the other eligible young bachelors were either missing or dead. 

Neither of them had much in the way of a childhood. That’s why it will be different for them. For Francesco. Francesco would finish school. Go to university. He’s so bright, so curious, deserved a better world than to stay in Calabria. It’s too late for Leo, but he’d make damn certain the path was less fraught for his son. Leo never could understand a man who would begrudge a child the opportunity he’d never had. Sebastiano Nizzuto had been a cruel, drunken man, and no one in their village truly mourned his passing, not even his brother.

…Especially not his son. Primo, Sebastiano’s little dandy. Too bullheaded, too obstinate to fall in line, damn him. And that, well. That thought still stung. It was like an old sore a dog returned to again and again.

Growing up Leo had watched adults and children alike mocking him: Primo Nizzuto, the boy who wore dresses. Watch your mother’s purse because he wouldn’t just steal jewelry, he’d snatch her lipstick, mascara, and rouge. Even worse he would _wear_ them, despite the black eyes and broken arms. For many years Leo had watched, and said nothing. What could he do? He’d been more than a decade older than Primo—old enough to recognize their contempt and know it wasn’t right, young enough himself still that to say anything would have been inappropriate. Dangerous, even. Drawn unwelcome eyes and pointed fingers his way. Leo spent much of his teens and early twenties drinking and smoking and fucking girls and boys alike, biting his tongue and turning a blind eye to Primo’s abuse.

Leo’s not a paragon of virtue. He had his younger, wilder days, but he’d done what every respectable man did and settled down, found a woman, got married, had a family. And he loves Regina, how could he not? She’s quick-witted and sharp, far too smart for the likes of him. If she’d been born a boy she would’ve been a scholar, an attorney, a politician. That’s not to say he doesn’t indulge in infidelity when the moment necessitates it—one doesn’t keep the company of men like Salvatore without being in the near-constant presence of prostitutes. And if one doesn’t partake—? Don Salvatore is traditional. He won’t tolerate queers, or men who could be confused for them.

No, for Leo the decision had never been difficult. The only future for him was here, and so he hid what he was, afraid even to name it, became who he had to be in order to stay. He’s not the only man in the mountains with these proclivities, but they all of them have the good sense to stay hidden. If not for themselves, then for their families.

…Primo won’t. Leo would be hard pressed to say if it’s childish stupidity or adolescent stubbornness: I am your son. Your nephew. I am here. I refuse to go away.

Sometimes he wonders if Regina knows. If she suspects. Wonders what she would think of him, knowing the father of her son to be both a queer and a coward.


End file.
